


When the Stars Come Out

by klancemcklain (arituzz)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Asexual Character, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pining, Pirate!Keith, Pirates, Siren!Lance, Sirens, a teensy bit of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2018-10-13 07:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10509273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arituzz/pseuds/klancemcklain
Summary: For as long as anyone could remember, there was an unspoken rule: Sirens should never go to the surface alone.But Lance and rules didn’t get along well. How the quiznak was someone supposed to achieve high levels of awesomeness if they didn’t take risks?He just wanted to see the stars.Or maybe Lance was just as mad as a wet chuuper.(Or,falling in love.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties regarding sirens/merfolk.

For as long as anyone could remember, there was an unspoken rule: Sirens shouldn’t go to the surface alone. Ever.

Because, _can’t be too cautious_ and all that gibberish. But Lance and rules didn’t get along well. How the quiznak was someoene supposed to achieve high levels of awesomeness if they didn’t take risks?

He just wanted to see the stars.

Hunk knew everything about the stars and space, and he’d told Lance all about them. Unlike Lance, he had been to the surface on multiple occasions. It was supremely unfair.

No one wanted to go to the surface with Lance. He had no Shay to take on a date when the stars came out. Allura and Coran were always busy with government stuff ( _aka_ boring stuff), and his family hadn’t come back from their trip to Wazblay.

After a lot of begging on Lance’s part, Hunk had finally agreed to take Lance up there and watch the stars. But not until the next Spicolian movement.

In. Five. Whole. Freaking. Quintants.

Obviously, Lance couldn’t wait that long.

So, he had a plan: He’d wait until everyone was asleep; find something to create a fake self–a few sea cucumbers or maybe a squid would do–to make it look like he was right there under the seaweed, sewing logs; and then he’d sneak his way up to the surface. Simple and brilliant.

But, as with most of Lance’s plans, it worked better in his head.

Apparently, catching a squid wasn’t as simple as it sounded. And forcing it to sleep was even harder.  (Who would have thought?)

Allura’s sea mice weren’t so easy to dodge, either.

The trip to the surface was less like a bed of coral and more like a bed of angry clanmurels, but not even that could outwin Lance’s determination. Nothing could.

Rising up out of the water was, to put it into words: _just–wow._

It was… different than anything Lance had felt before. A whole new world of sensations. And air! So much air! And yet Lance suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Lungs. Of course. That was what lungs were for. After a lot of gasping and gulping, Lance finally got the hang of it. He could feel the air filling his lungs. _Nice_. And then it hit him.

He could speak. Like, out loud.

“Hhh… llow?” He tried, “nnn… ame’sss Lann-ce.”

Okay, he’d have to perfect that.

But speaking could wait, because what Lance really wanted to try was shouting at the top of his lungs.

He gulped all the air he could get and then let it all out, using his voice. And then he did it again. Holy cheese. Lance didn’t think anything in the world could feel better than this.

Except maybe the stars.

Lance had hauled up onto a small inlet, so he looked around for a spot to stretch out and stare at the sky, and found some rocks near the sea shore. Those would do.

As Lance got closer, he spotted something, a silhouette–probably a human–under the dim light of the moon.

Lance silently approached the figure, ignoring all the alarms that were suddenly going off in his head. (They were already used to being ignored.)

He was right, it was a human. A pirate. Lance had heard a lot of rumours about the pirates, but none of them did justice to this man.

Pirates were dangerous, cruel creatures. They were rude and rough, and never to be approached. Another rule that Lance decided to flat-out ignore.

This pirate was nothing like that. Despite his disgruntled frown, he looked kind of… nice? He was looking up at the starry sky like his life depended on it.

Lance was so amazed that he almost forgot what he came there for in the first place. The stars. Right. Lance was finally able to watch the stars.

Not wanting to alert the human, he settled on a nearby rock with as little noise as possible.

Lying back and resting his head on his hands, Lance let himself get absorbed by the immensity of the sky. That was the only way to describe what he was doing. Because _whoa_ : He couldn’t tell if he was staring at the sky or the sky was staring at him.

He felt like if he stretched out his arm, he would be able to touch it. The starry sky was darkness and light, all at once. Calming.

And never in his life had Lance seen anything so beautiful.

After what felt like a few scant doboshes–but were probably one or two vargas–Lance’s gaze shifted back to Earth.

And his heart almost flipped because the pirate was looking at him. He was _so_ close. Like, really close. The way the moonlight reflected on the pirate’s eyes, the man himself, it was… alluring, for lack of a better word.

The human kept looking at him and sound came out of his mouth but Lance couldn’t understand what he was saying. And just then Lance noticed the blade on the pirate’s hands. Okay, so he was probably insulting him in human.

Nevermind the alluring thing–he was just a dick.

And actually, he looked ready to attack.

Lance did the only thing he could think of – he sang.

The pirate’s aggressive stance only intensified and he stared at Lance as if he had personally offended him. ( _Hello_? He was the one insulting Lance in the first place!) But the human wasn’t disintegrating, or even melting. Somehow that’s what Lance had always imagined would happen if he sang. Nobody had ever explained to him what it actually did, only that it was a useful weapon.

Either they were joking, or Lance was different from the other sirens. Defective.

That would actually make sense.

And now he was going to die alone, in the hands of a pirate. The freaking irony.

But no. The stab never came. The pirate kept looking at Lance, now more confused than threatening. And, probably seeing that Lance wasn’t harming him, he just put the blade down.

Thank quiznak.

Then, the man turned for his bag and began rummaging for something. Could it be a bigger weapon?

Lance wanted to stay and yell at this human for vargas. But he also wanted to leave and never deal with him again.

He couldn’t wait to tell Hunk about the pirate. Except – he _couldn’t_. Because nobody could ever know he had been to the surface alone.

The pirate seemed to have found what he was looking for, because he turned back to Lance, an egg-like device on his hand.

No, no, nope. As much as Lance wanted to pester this irritating human, he wasn’t going to get himself killed by a freaking egg. No way.

So he left before someone noticed he was gone.

 _Hasta la never_ , pirate.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance went back onto the surface the following day. And the day after. And the day after that one. After perfecting his sneaking-out method, Lance took the habit to go see the stars every night. (The stars. Not a certain pirate.)

The next time the pirate took the egg-like device out, Lance was already prepared. He had taken some rocks in case the pirate tried to harm him. But, as Lance was about to throw them at him, the pirate talked.

“Don’t!” he said, flashing Lance his palm. “I don’t want to harm you.” The pirate pointed at the egg-thing on his hand and told Lance, “It’s a translating device.”

A translating device, ha. So it wasn’t an ultra advanced murdering weapon. Of course. Not that Lance was afraid, or anything. “Sure, man,” he told the pirate. And then he added, “Name’s Lance,” and extended his hand for the pirate to shake.

“Keith,” he said, taking Lance’s hand.

Lance pretended that wasn’t the freaking coolest name he’d ever heard. “Nice,” he said, and let go of him.

As much as Lance asked him who he was or what he was doing there, Keith didn’t say anything else that day.

Lance just accepted it and went back into the sea.

Lance’s life in the ocean didn’t change much the days after his first meeting with the pirate. He hung out with Hunk every day. And Coran and Allura when they weren’t working. He may or may not be asking more questions about pirates than usual. (Which used to be never.) (And now all the time.) But Lance was sure his friends didn’t notice.

“Hunk?” Lance asked him one day. “How does our singing work?”

Hunk brought his hand to his chin, thoughtfully. “I think it’s supposed to lure the victim to death, or something,” he explained. “Coran will know better, though.

“Thanks, man,” said Lance and made finger-guns before turning around.

“Also Lance?” Hunk called after him before he could leave. “Does this have to do with your sudden pirate fixation?”

Lance bit at his lower lip and avoided his friend’s stare. Okay, maybe he wasn’t being as subtle as he’d thought. “What do you mean fixation?”

“You don’t stop asking questions about pirates,” said Hunk.

“I ask just the  _ right _ amount of questions about pirates,” Lance told him, making a lot of gestures so that he had his hands busy. “I have never met a pirate. And I will never do. You meet one if you want. But me? Na-ah,” he said, moving his index finger.

“Yeah… Sure.”

Lance didn’t like lying to his friend but there wasn’t much of an alternative. If he told him about the pirate, Hunk could get in trouble, and that was out of the question. He had already dragged him into risky situations in the past, but this time was different. Lance would have to get in trouble on his own.

For the following days, most of what Lance could think of was Keith. And also the fact that Lance’s singing didn’t affect him. Keith wasn’t much of a talker but Lance’s senses told him that he was a good person after all. And his senses never failed. Well, they didn’t usually fail. Much.

One day, when Lance went out of the sea, Keith wasn’t on the rocks. Nor anywhere near. Lance couldn’t help thinking the pirate got finally bored of him and had left to wherever he was before they met. 

But Lance decided to look for him, anyway.

He ended up in a nearby sea cave, which looked like the kind of place where you got eaten by a Weblum or kidnapped by angry Unilus.

But, thankfully, Lance didn’t find any menacing creature there. Just Keith. Who, actually,  _ could _ be a menacing creature, a voice that sounded a lot like Allura’s warned him in his head. Lance decided to ignore that thought and approached the pirate.

Keith was looking around, inspecting the rocks and the cave walls. He started pacing about, not minding Lance at all.

“What are you doing? Looking for something?” Lance asked.

Keith ignored him.

“Hey!” Lance called after him. “Maybe I could help you?” he offered, but Keith was his usual not-saying-a-word self. 

Lance followed him through the cave in silence. Keith walked determinedly but paying special attention to the surroundings, as if he had lost something. Or someone. Lance wondered if this was actually some sort of pirate haven. The Allura in his head urged him to swim back home as fast as he could without looking back; but, by then, Lance was already practised in shutting the voice off.  Plus, he kind of trusted Keith.

It was then that Lance noticed they were in the exact same spot he’d found Keith at the beginning. And it occurred to him that maybe Keith’s apparent determination was just an act to hide the truth: He was lost. “You don’t know your way back, do you?” Lance asked him.

Keith gave him one of his typical disgruntled frowns. Lance thought he was going to deny it but Keith sighed and said, “I don’t.”

“Oh good, so you can still speak after all,” said Lance. “I can show you the way out. If you want.”

“I can find it myself, thanks,” Keith said. He said it in a way that instead of “thanks” it sounded more like a “shut up”, Lance thought.

Lance arched him an eyebrow. “No, you clearly can’t?”

Keith crossed his arms. “I don’t need your help,” he growled.

“Okay, man,” Lance said,  his palms facing Keith. “I’ll just go back and won’t turn around to see if,  _ say _ , anyone was following me.”

“Whatever.”

As slowly as he could, Lance swam his way back to the inlet. In the distance, Keith was following him, trying hard to go unnoticed. But what Keith hadn’t had in mind was that Lance was a siren, which meant his ears were trained to hear underwater sounds; so, everything on the surface sounded  _ loud _ to him. Plus, Keith and subtlety weren’t exactly best friends. 

Lance decided to spare Keith the embarrassment and opted for going back into the ocean. He would have plenty of time for teasing him tomorrow.

-TBC-

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ♡


End file.
